The wealthy want to work with true experts who can help them make informed decisions to solve their most pressing financial concerns:
WEALTH PRESERVATION. The affluent want to keep their wealth and have enough to fund their lifestyles. Goal: To produce the best possible investment returns consistent with the client’s time frame and risk tolerance.
Five-Star Tip: Private investments are not tied to the volatility of the stock market.
WEALTH ENHANCEMENT. Taxes can and do eat up a great deal of wealth. Goal: To minimize the impact of taxes on client’s income and investment returns while ensuring the cash flow they want.
Five-Star Tip: Tax Management Journey.
WEALTH TRANSFER. Given the dynamic interactions of families and the fluid nature of today’s tax environment, the affluent must be proactive with estate planning to have their wealth benefit their heirs as much as possible. Goal: To take care of heirs and other loved ones in the most tax efficient way.
Five-Star Tip: Consider a Family Bank.
WEALTH PROTECTION. Many affluent individuals worry about becoming divorced and or being sued, not surprising given our litigious culture. Goal: To and help ensure that assets are not unjustly taken.
Five-Star Tip: The art of creating wealth is not what you own, but what you control. The re’s no formal body of law called asset protection, instead it’s a series of strategies and tools that are part of the category know as legal risk planning.
CHARITABLE GIVING. Many affluent individuals want to make a true difference in the world. Goal: To make meaningful gifts to charity in the most impactful way possible.
Five-Star Tip: How much control and complexity do you want?
HUMAN NATURE
Human nature causes most people to be ineffective in planning and prioritizing a successful financial future due to: procrastination; wishful thinking; the inability to budget; too much reliance on “past performance” to predict future outcomes; the speculator inside almost every investor struggling to get out; and searching for “proof ” that doesn’t exist.
In addition to these quirks, consider the countless and constantly changing complexities of the marketplace that most people just don’t see coming, not to mention the tax laws and the financial planning process itself. Add it all up and you will begin to see the true benefits of working with a trusted advisor for the client’s long-term planning needs.
And financial blind spots (i.e., taxes, fees, spousal continuation, etc.) that potentially exist in anyone’s financial plan – either presently or sometime in the future, when left unaddressed, could result in well over $3 million leaving their circle of wealth unknowingly or unnecessarily, over a single generation:
WHY ADVANCED PLANNING AND STRESS TESTING
Advanced planning is like a chess game. Each piece has a distinct move, but it’s how one combines the moves that ultimately captures the King and Queen and wins the game. An amateur chess player could not beat a professional chess player, even though he knows how each piece moves.
Clients understand that they could make many of these planning moves themselves, but they quickly realize that the insight advisors bring to the table offsets their annual fee investment many times over. But the most important benefit that clients fee l advisors offer to them (from a survey that was conducted) is the peace of mind knowing that someone has their back and is overseeing their financial affairs through all of the financial turbulence that will take place throughout their lifetime.
Investments, taxes, insurance, estate plan, retirement plans…most people don’t realize that, like the stone in the water, an action in anyone of these areas, can cause ripples in all the other areas. That’s why when it comes to your financial security, it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know.
And yet without the right planning you may very well allow a stranger (the IRS) to walk right into your life without participating in any of the sacrifices you made or endured any of the losses you encountered along the way in building your success. And this stranger will take its share of your family LEGACY that could have gone to your children, your grandchildren or your community.
Stress test your financial plan today!
